Aldermen who submitted to the governor of California to allow schools for personal learning said Thursday that their children are suffering academically and psychologically.
“The negative effects of keeping schools close weigh the risk of opening them up,” said Jesse Petrilla, a father of two boys and a complainant in the case filed on July 29.
Gavin Newsom of California announced last month that all schools – both public and private – in counties on the list of emerging cases of coronavirus could not start classes again or start school again, and would have to meet strict criteria before reopen them.
Currently, 32 of the state’s 58 counties are on the list, including the majority of California’s population and its largest cities – Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco, according to NBC Bay Area.
The state serves 6.7 million students and many of the states ’1,000 school districts are set to begin mid-to-end August.
Petrilla said when schools closed in March, he noticed a “significant decline in involvement and motivation and enthusiasm for learning” in his sons. He said he and his wife also “worried about long-term effects, psychologically, if the schools remain closed.”
He said the ‘rich’ and ‘working class’ would otherwise be affected by distance learning mandates, pointing out that many struggling families rely on food delivered to their children at school.
“Elsewhere must have a choice. Teachers must have a choice. Districts must have a choice,” Petrilla said. “The governor is trying to take away that freedom with this mandate.”
Marianne Bema, a mother of three, originally from Cameroon, Africa, said she did not have the resources to hire a tutor. “I’m not a professional teacher,” she said. “My boys are having trouble.”
Christine Ruiz, who has two sons with autism and a third son, said she “stopped living” in March. “They have no learning at all,” she said.
Attorney Harmeet Dhillon, the founder and CEO of The Center For American Liberty representing parents, said they represent the “numerous variations” of the needs of parents and their children.
The governor’s plan to reopen schools should not be “one big fit for all templates,” she said. There will be schools or districts that “have the right to say it’s just not possible,” but that should be their choice, she said.
Matthew Brach, who has two teenagers at school and is on the board of the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District, said his district had plans all summer to get safety measures in place. A majority of the parents in the ward chose to participate in hybrid learning, and in a ‘testament to teachers and their courage’, a majority had chosen to return.
When asked about a school district in Georgia in which more than 800 of her students and staff were told to quarantine after possible exposure to the coronavirus just a week after the new one opened, Dhillon said “anecdotes are not the singular data. “
She said she was not worried about a similar situation at California schools if “appropriate precautionary measures are taken.”
This week, Newsom announced its plan to delay the opening of schools for personal learning, California reported one to one-day high total in infection rates and deaths since the start of the pandemic. The following week, the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in California exceeded New York’s total for the most part in the United States.
Several major school districts in the state, including Los Angeles and San Diego, had already said the new school year would virtually begin.
As of August 11, more than 10,000 people in the state have died from coronavirus, according to the California Department of Public Health.
Newsom’s bureau on Thursday did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the parents’ suit, which is set to be heard in court on Monday.
When he rolled out the school opening plan, Newsom noted that the state budget would raise more than $ 5 billion to help with distance learning, and schools would be required to “implement robust distance education programs.”
“Learning is not negotiable,” Newsom said at the time. “The virus will be with us for a year or more, and school districts must provide meaningful instruction in the midst of this pandemic. In California, health data will determine when a school can be physically open – and when it should close – but learning should never stop. Students, staff and parents all prefer instruction in class, but only if it can be done safely. ”
The California Teachers Association, which represents 310,000 members, agrees with Newsom.
“The health and safety of all students and staff should be the first priority and guiding principle in opening public schools and colleges for the 2020-21 school year,” the association said. “When we physically return to school campuses, it needs to be planned and conscious with safety and public health at the forefront of all decisions and with the involvement of educators and parents.”
